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The NZ songwriter and singer Kimbra is the Ambassador for the Virtual Peer Resilience Learning project. See the rest of her interview and that of other role models at: tinyurl.com/UNESCOPeerLearning. Kimbra advocates and shares her experience as part of her endorsement for the UNESCO project. The self-learning programme collates interviews of youth who have overcome challenging and/or traumatic experiences and share with peers how they built their ability to bounce back from adversity. These stories about about preventing marginalisation and social exclusion.

Heartfelt thanks to the NZ Commission for UNESCO, the Ministry of Social Development - Think Differently Campaign and Hamish Walton, Owner-Manager PAK'nSAVE Mill St. Hamilton for their support in producing this resource.

This methodology was developed in a foundational research project targeting youth at-risk and funded by the Todd Foundation in 2011. The research described what elements need to be integrated in oral role model stories in order to maximise impact in the audience it is aimed at.

The project provides positive role models to marginalised subgroups using mobile technology and social media to spread this knowledge because it is our audience's preferred channel of communication.

Our vision is that these stories contribute to a repository of stories helping to strengthen social inclusion and social sustainability amongst NZ youth. The mosaic of stories responds to the range of needs and challenges that youth face by offering them positive peers to learn from. These stories will also form the core of learning resources that are engaging to youth at risk of underachieving in literacy because they are lively interviews of young people just like them -- who have overcome obstacles to realise their dreams.

Sharing the learning: our contribution to the NZ Human Rights Commission Te Ngira Diversity Programme conference is: http://youtu.be/bXeqkD_M8Vc We were invited to participate to this conference after the 2011 NZ Race Relation Report showcased our role model stories for the richness of experiences they offer. The NZ Human Rights Commission report is online at: http://www.hrc.co.nz/wp-con...... - see p.111). The strength of the project lies in its promotion of the cultural diversity behind lessons learned and the spirit of sharing what we learn with each other.

This playlist includes a selection of the multimedia content available on our YouTube channel - it is the product of our research in the past decade and the online complement of peer-reviewed and wide media publications.

Raising the Bar for Social Inclusion: The Peer-Learning project collates Case Studies filmed interviews relating stories of resilience amongst at-risk youth. They are stories about preventing social exclusion. The New Zealand singer Kimbra is the Ambassador for this UNESCO project. The self-learning programme collates interviews of youth who have overcome challenging and/or traumatic experiences and share with peers how they built their ability to bounce back from adversity. The project uses proven oral storytelling methodologies to describe the significant lessons learned by these role models.

Heartfelt thanks to the Ministry of Social Development - Think Differently Campaign and Hamish Walton, Owner-Manager PAK'nSAVE Mill St. Hamilton for their support in producing this resource.

This methodology was developed in a foundational research project targeting youth at-risk and funded by the Todd Foundation in 2011. The research described what elements need to be integrated in oral role model stories in order to maximise impact in the audience it is aimed at.

The project provides positive role models to marginalised subgroups using mobile technology and social media to spread this knowledge because it is our audience's preferred channel of communication.

Our vision is that these stories contribute to a repository of stories helping to strengthen social sustainability amongst NZ youth. The mosaic of stories responds to the range of needs and challenges that youth face by offering them positive peers to learn from. These stories form the core of learning resources that are engaging to youth at risk of underachieving in literacy because they are lively interviews of young people just like them -- who have overcome obstacles to realise their dreams.

Sharing the learning: our contribution to the NZ Human Rights Commission Te Ngira Diversity Programme conference is: http://youtu.be/bXeqkD_M8Vc We were invited to participate to this conference after the 2011 NZ Race Relation Report showcased our role model stories for the richness of experiences they offer. The NZ Human Rights Commission report is online at: http://www.hrc.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/RRR-2011-... - see p.111). The strength of the project lies in its promotion of the cultural diversity behind lessons learned and the spirit of sharing what we learn with each other.

This resource bundle was funded by the IHC Foundation. This playlist is companion to the hard copy resource that is available on their website at: http://www.ihc.org.nz/resources/travel-safe-guide. We received a huge amount of positive feedback about this project. The downloadable hard copies are personal workbooks that people can complete entering information about their surroundings, streets and public transport stations and more personalised information. The IDEA Services are rolling out implementation of this resource nationwide after a very successful pilot was carried out in the Waikato, King Country region!

Storytelling to spark change in peers:Teenagers want to learn from each other! Hence peer role models whose stories are accessible 24/7 and via mobile phones can be part of a family's change strategy.

Our aim is to find out what story elements are more potent that others in engaging youth. We reach young people via their teachers / therapists / youth workers if they have left school already. We wanted these interviews to be a starting point for a teenager to think about their future. So we needed to work out a methodology that would within a very short time create a high level of identification with the story told by the role model so that the lessons learnt by the role model could be taken in (you only learn from the people you admire and respect and with whom you feel a certain level of affinity). We studied the underlying structure of mythologies to understand what the universal factors for potent storytelling are... so we could embed this structure in our stories.

We have worked with youth educators to make up lesson plans around these interviews so that teenagers can get best value out of listening to the interviews and then reflect upon the impact of good and bad role models on them as well as their future and who they want to be a role model to.

The plight of older refugees or refugees with disability combines two Human Rights issues making this population one of the most marginalised there are. They face language, cultural, psychological (Post traumatic and others), sociological and economical difficulties and often miss out on accessing New Zealand disability services for reasons embedded in layers of complexity.

One way I suggest to start addressing this issue is to share stories of families who have navigated the system and can inform their peers in their native language via oral video storytelling.

We are at the start of this research project and would like to consult with colleagues who have had experience in this domain so that we can discuss how to best make this initial approach.

In order to start raise awareness about the project we have posted an April [tinyurl.com/refugeestories] and a February story [tinyurl.com/empower-disabled-refugees] on our blog and put out a call for interviewees on webhealth.co.nz. This list includes a number of interviews with refugees and organisations that support refugees - a subset of these clips include disability issues.

The Plumtree Family Storytelling project collated the stories of families who have a child with a disability. Families were interviewed and coached to tell their stories on video. The interviews focused on the process they went through to receive individual funding, the use they make of it to assist their family in for instance purchasing resources or services, the impact that the funding had on their child and by extension on the whole family.

The families reflected on their experience with caring for a disabled child, from the time they received the diagnosis, through to making contact with Plumtree and commented on the lessons learned along the way. These lessons were analysed thematically and the interviews were post-processed so that these lessons be easily shared with other parents. A trailer introduces the project and provides the context relevant to Plumtree present and future audience. In total, just over an hour of video materials were produced.

Implications and future uses: This project reinforces our experience that families learn best from each other – and provide engaging content for their peers - potential Plumtree new clients who search for relevant services via the internet. Parents have clearly stated that they receive not only new information, but also knowledge, from other parents: that is, information about what is available, but with the added value of a genuine evaluation from someone like them who has tried and tested the resource or service in question. It is this knowledge that sets apart the Plumtree Family Storytelling project!

The Storytelling project provides unique learning materials for other professionals. The potential to develop relevant and appealing staff training programmes from parents’ stories is great, as families reflect on their reactions to the services provided by Plumtree. Additionally, these parents’ experiences with the system can offer valuable insight for NDIS policy and implementation.